Shooting from the lip

standing on a Landy, in the middle of a river, high in the Bolivian Andes.

Martin Dreyer had just won the G4 Challenge. But he was just warming up.

Back home, the multiple Dusi Canoe Marathon champ began pouring every fibre of his being into a band of young Zulu men – in the same place Paton wrote about, the Valley of a Thousand Hills.

For decades, they had watched their white countrymen pass. Dreyer changed that, founding his “Change a Life” training academy. He ran, paddled and collapsed, exhausted, with them.

This year, with their champion coach breathing fire into their hearts, the Zulu canoeists claimed four places in the Dusi’s top 10 – 10 in the top 20 and 20 in the top 40.

It’s a story of epic significance, in a land of pain and hate.

The Parlotones’ chorus rings magnificent.

There’s a line from Eric Liddell is explaining his life’s mission.

He explains gently that he’s a pastor in the Scottish church. But he’s also a sprinter.

“I believe God made me for a purpose. But he also made me FAST. And, when I run, I feel His pleasure.”

I heard the Parlotones when Sibusiso Vilane summited Mount Everest. When Riaan Manser circumnavigated Africa alone by bicycle. When Josia Thugwane arrived in Atlanta stadium, US, and began waving his arms in joy.

Just five months before the 1996 summer Olympics, he’d been hijacked and shot.

Unbowed, he lifted his bloodied, bullet-scarred chin, and lifted his entire country.

On Thursday, Capetonian Chris Bertish stand-up-paddled into Antigua, two million paddle strokes and 93 days after leaving Morocco.

Some people don’t understand why his achievement is so immense.

But some do. It’s because this Monday morning, I am reminded of my potential, because of you, Chris Bertish.

And of the courage I must summon to cross my own ocean.

“I’ll be thinking of the times I felt inspired… ”